The recent growth in popularity of the Internet has significantly increased the number of Internet users and the number of Internet sites (also referred to as “web sites”). Web sites may provide various types of information to users, offer products or services for sale, and provide games and other forms of entertainment. Many web sites require users to “register” by providing information about themselves before the web server grants access to the site. This registration information may include the user's name, account number, address, telephone number, email address, computer platform, age, gender, or hobbies. The registration information collected by the web site may be necessary to complete transactions (such as commercial or financial transactions). Additionally, information can be collected which allows the web site operator to learn about the visitors to the site to better target its future marketing activities or adjust the information provided on the web site. The collected information may also be used to allow the web site to contact the user directly (e.g., via email) in the future to announce, for example, special promotions, new products, or new features of the web site.
When registering with a web site for the first time, the web site typically requests that the user select a login ID and an associated password. The login ID allows the web site to identify the user and retrieve the user's information during subsequent user visits to the web site. Generally, the login ID must be unique to the web site such that no two users have the same login ID. The password associated with the login ID allows the web site to authenticate the user during subsequent visits to the web site. The password also prevents others (who do not know the password) from accessing the web site using the user's login ID. This password protection is particularly important if the web site stores private or confidential information about the user, such as financial information or medial records.
If a user visits several different web sites, each web site may require entry of similar registration information about the user, such as the user's name, mailing address, and email address. This repeated entry of identical data is tedious when visiting multiple web sites in a short period of time. Many web sites require the user to register before accessing any information provided on the web site. Thus, the user must enter the requested registration information before they can determine whether the site contains any information of interest.
After registering with multiple web sites, the user must remember the specific login ID and password used with each web site or other Internet service. Without the correct login ID and password, the user must re-enter the registration information. A particular user is likely to have different login IDs and associated passwords on different web sites. For example, a user named Bob Smith may select “smith” as his login ID for a particular site. If the site already has a user with a login ID of “smith” or requires a login ID of at least six characters, then the user must select a different login ID.
After registering at numerous web sites, Bob Smith may have a collection of different login IDs, such as: smith, smith1, bsmith, smithb, bobsmith, bob_smith, and smithbob. Further, different passwords may be associated with different login IDs due to differing password requirements of the different web sites (e.g., password length requirements or a requirement that each password include at least one numeric character). Thus, Bob Smith must maintain a list of web sites, login IDs, and associated passwords for all sites that he visits regularly.
A few services provide a login type of service to make signing into accounts at multiple sites more convenient. Some services provide a key ring, which is essentially a set of images or icons (keys) which when selected provide ID and passwords to a site associated with the key. Each key may correspond to a different site. Another service provides a link to each desired site, which when selected logs a user into the site, and also contains further background information which may be required by a site. While such services make signing into sites easy, it is more difficult to easily sign out of the sites without visiting each site. In addition, the information required by the sites may be incorporated into data files referred to as cookies, which may or may not be deleted on logging out.
There is a need to be able to log out of multiple accounts, and not have other users of the same computer to get into the same accounts. Furthermore, with kiosks and other public devices that are used to access the web to check email, stocks and order from retail outlets, privacy is a great concern. There also is a need for some form of assurance that the user is logged out of each site. A user can manually delete sensitive information, but there is a danger of deleting personalization files. If such files are deleted, they must be entered again the next time the account is entered.